80 Responses

Its sounds as though Beijing will not be quite the place others have come to know, but nonetheless quite educating. Perhaps some will finally grasp quite the size of the once sleeping giant. F**k ! 40 million flowers the people to plant, grow and place them. I remeber a few years ago whole streets changing in the course of a week I cannot imagine what it is like now.

The premise of Emma's article seems to be that she completely disagrees with that statement!

It seems to me that all cities pull their socks up & pretend to be squeaky clean jolly hockey sticks when the international spotlight shines on them. Think Sydney, Athens... but Beijing was exponentially grubbier than most. Must surely be nice to have a little short term respite from that! ...?

i hardly think there is any danger of Beijing becoming the next Tokyo.

maybe if you're really lucky, it will be the next Singapore, except with more than one season and plenty of yellow dust. You know, officious Chinese making as many rules as they can think of, and enforcing them. Something to look forward to.

I particularly like this from a book by Dick Pound, a former IOC member. He quotes Samaranch (former IOC president) as saying: "'Leesten, Deek,' he said to me at one point. 'For [the Olympics], it is much better to go to these countries. There will never be security problems.'"

On watching the Olympics in Australia: Upside - extensive free to air coverage on several channels. Downside: hearing the commentators talk about Bay-jeeeng, and what a funny outfit Mark Drysdale is wearing.

One thing that surprised me however was how much high-school Chinese I remember. Despite it being the world's most spoken language, it's very rarely that we encounter it without it being slathered with subtitles (which usually means I read instead of listening).

Despite being a skeptic, I've actually been charmed by this spectacle. China seems desperately to want to prove itself to the world (in the eyes of this uninformed foreigner), while simultaneously asserting itself. A contradiction, perhaps, but an interesting one.

There was a piece on Al Jazeera last night here, dunno if it was in the NZ feed, about a guy who spent five years in jail after he was arrested at Tiananmen in 1989. He was back in the square being interviewed again and he was a huge supporter of the Olympics and he doesn't seem to be out of step with Chinese opinion.

It's folks outside of China who are getting righteous about this, not the Chinese population who seem to be very supportive.

On whose behalf would you be staging this boycott though? As Simon notes, the Chinese people seem very largely supportive and excited. And the exiled Tibetan leadership has repeatedly said it wants the games to go ahead and be a success.

On whose behalf would you be staging this boycott though? As Simon notes, the Chinese people seem very largely supportive and excited. And the exiled Tibetan leadership has repeatedly said it wants the games to go ahead and be a success.

I guess that's a legitimate question to ask about the folks who still pat themselves on the back about the '81 anti-tour protests. I don't actually believe they shortened the life of the apartheid regime by one second, but they did send a message (as Nelson Mandela himself has said) that someone somewhere wasn't buying the whitewash where sports and politics certainly do mix.

At the very least, it would be nice if TVNZ (in particular) started charging the IOC and China for the advertorial disgusied as news.

It's folks outside of China who are getting righteous about this, not the Chinese population who seem to be very supportive.

And the exiled Tibetan leadership has repeatedly said it wants the games to go ahead and be a success.

Anything that shines a light on a country with the Chinese record for censorship and imprisoning dissenters ought to be a good thing, the Tibetan leadership is not alone in recognising that. The press conference cancellation I linked to the other day was not surprising of course, but it's up to the journalists to chase such stories regardless, and being there in the first place should help them to do just that. Whether and to what extent they will or not will depend on the authorities' ability to conceal them, their own desire to pursue them, and the respective outlets' will to devote minutes and column inches to something other than Phelps' and their own nation's medal tally.

Just to add to my folk-outside-out-China righteousness quotient, I'll look out with interest also for stories about international relations with the country - ought to be a pretty good study on hipocrisy on a planet-wide scale - and especially about Chinese people abroad. I know Italy and my own town especially could use examining its attitudes there, we have bang on one hundred years of pretty solid racism to mull over.

Well, I have a lot of practice at feeling and thinking two or more things at the same time (feminist hip-hop fan!), so during the opening ceremony I was all 'holy SHIT! This is incredibly awesome! How can anyone ever top this spectacle?'... but I also kept making jokes about how much Leni Riefenstahl would have loved it.

.. but I also kept making jokes about how much Leni Riefenstahl would have loved it.

I was thinking more in terms of how power has always thrown shapes and conjured magic -- from the cathedrals of Europe to the movies of Hollywood.

I think you can admire the creative vitality, technical excellence and sheer scale of the opening ceremony while simultaneously holding a thought in your head about how China's human rights performance needs to improve some more.

Which reminds me, I caught about an hour and a half of the '36 Berlin Olympics on Triangle last night (100% 1936 footage, cut & English audio-tracked c. 1960, by the look of it.) First time I've seen Lovelock's entire 1500m race win. For the record, he was in third for most of the race, but powered out to a 5 metre lead at the start of the penultimate straight (ie about the 1200m mark.)

Well, I have a lot of practice at feeling and thinking two or more things at the same time (feminist hip-hop fan!), so during the opening ceremony I was all 'holy SHIT! This is incredibly awesome! How can anyone ever top this spectacle?'... but I also kept making jokes about how much Leni Riefenstahl would have loved it.

What will the London Olympics do? I wouldn't even try to top Beijing. I'd maybe just light the flame and organise a sausage sizzle for the athletes.

I'd organise a rave -- seriously. What London has over most other places in the world is the vitality of its popular culture. They'd be well advised to start arranging giant holograms of The Gorillaz now.

Well for starters perhaps those who were thrown out of their homes without recourse to the law so that some shiny new hotels and such could be erected in their stead.

The Olympics on one level represent an opportunity for those in the West to display any conscience they may have in solidarity with the voiceless multitudes who perhaps don't see the games as a true expression of their homeland.

If we say nothing or do nothing we are simply complicit and will be seen as such.

What London has over most other places in the world is the vitality of its popular culture.

Definitely. And the $5 disco biscuit.

They could get the marathon competitors all loved up and accompanied by huge sound trucks. The race would take 12 hours with all the stopping for group hugs. And at the end the St Helena competitor would get carried over the line and given a gold medal. With blinkies round the rim.